In today's overkill digest we'll look at the Nintendo Direct, what AYANEO has been working on, and I have some thoughts on Assassin’s Creed: Shadows.
Hi, hello, welcome to a new edition of the overkill digest newsletter.
A little PSA: Today in a week from now at around the time you get this newsletter, I'll be trying my gear and stream on YouTube. It won't be a long stream and I will mostly be opening up Collector Boosters of the latest Magic: The Gathering set (that's the best way I can think of to test multiple camera angles).
I will send a reminder with next week's email, but if you wanna get notified early, subscribe to the YouTube channel.
Ok, and now, let's get to the newsletter.
🚀 Big Moves
- Ubisoft and Tencent work together to split off Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. Tencent invested €1.16 billion into this new entity, which will include all Ubisoft teams working on those franchises (so Quebec, Montréal, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Sofia, and Barcelona). I hope this doesn't lead to more lay-offs in the gaming industry. In exchange, the Chinese company will own a 25% stake.
- AYANEO announced the Pocket ACE. Snapdragon G3x Gen 2, a 4.5" 3:2 LCD-screen (1620x1080), a 6000mAh battery, and Android as its OS. Decent spec sheet, but we know nothing about price nor release date so far.
🎮 Platform Updates
- Nintendo held a Switch 1 Direct a week before the Switch 2 Direct. This is such a Nintendo move that I can't even say I'm surprised. We got to see a bunch of stuff like new footage of Pokémon Legends Z-A and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Also, weirdly enough...
- ...Nintendo launched a news app. And they used the app to announce the release date for the live-action Legends of Zelda movie that has absolutely no right to exist. Chris shares some of his thoughts on that weird app in the linked post.
- Amazon Luna now offers EA games and expands to more countries. These countries are Sweden, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg. Hey, wait, I'm in Luxembourg! If you also live in one of these countries, you can now also get the Luna Controller for an intro price of 45€.
- A review of Light Phone III. I'm currently in a very toxic relationship with my phone. I had some rough personal stuff happen this week, and my phone became this black hole that just sucked in most of my time. I think my screen time on Friday was something like 8 hours just mindlessly doing stuff. Since then, I have nuked all social media apps from my phone, and only check them on my computer. But I still am not fully able to cut lost my dependency, so something like the Light Phone III is quite endearing, but going by the review by The Verge I miss a handful of features to make this a viable option for me. Maybe I have to look at this instead.
💻 Hardware & Software
- Sony share The Last Of Us Part II PC specs. Sony didn't directly mention Steam Deck support, but since they said the PC port is designed to "ensure the best possible experience on hardware ranging from high-end PCs to handheld gaming devices", I'm fairly confident that this will run with the right tweaks. It's coming out next Thursday.
- The best settings for Atomfall on Steam Deck. With Timo's settings, you can expect a battery life of up to two and a half hours.
- Apple Arcade struggles since no one uses it. I don't know if I remember this wrong, but when Apple Arcade was still fresh, Apple offered a three-month period I signed up for and then ended up barely using. And even when they wanted to gift me another free trial a few times since the original offer, I never bothered signing up since the service is just not that good. What could have been the Netflix of Mobile Gaming (turns out, Netflix is the Netflix of Mobile Gaming) was just a mediocre offering.
- Someone straight up copied the Vision Pro. Not much is known about the Vivo Vision, except that it's a (probably much worse though much cheaper) Apple Vision Pro copycat.
- Indiana Jones and The Great Circle comes to PS5 on April 17. Xbox exclusives are dead, and this is yet another sign of Microsoft's new direction. I played the game by the way, it's very fun so worth picking up when it releases.
- The first test version of the Nexus Mods app is ready. Development of the successor to Vortex (what I use to mod Skyrim and other games on my gaming PC) is coming along nicely, so the Nexus Mods has announced a Stardew Valley preview release. For now, you'll only be able to mod Stardew Valley (as the name suggests) but at least, you'll be able to do so on Steam Deck, too.
🎲 Playthings
- Over a million fans joined a virtual queue for Pokémon. Chris tried joining the virtual line for the latest Pokémon Trading Card game set (Destined Rivals) only to realize there were more than 1.4 million people ahead of him. That's more than twice the population of the country I live in. Insane numbers!
📌 Quick Hits
- A little recommendation for my iOS-people: Quiche Browser. I discovered this browser through the excellent Installer newsletter, and it quickly became my default browser on my iPhone. It basically has (nearly) everything you can find in Safari plus then some. I fully customized the experience to my liking, and can easily use Kagi as my default search engine of choice. This thing is so good, I want a Mac version.
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🔒 Premium Deep Dive:
I’m 12 hours into Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and honestly, I’m using this newsletter as a forced break. To be fair, I’d rather be sneaking through bamboo forests with Naoe or smashing doors with Yasuke. (I still love you, reader!)
So here is why I think this is my most favourite Assassin's Creed yet (and I‘ve played them all).